The law that required TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest or face a U.S. ban — the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — would be fully repealed. Any designations made under that law labeling TikTok or similar apps as “foreign adversary controlled applications” would be voided and have no legal effect. This removes the legal basis for blocking or restricting access to TikTok and other affected apps for the roughly 170 million Americans who use them. The repeal restores the prior legal status without creating any new national security review mechanism in its place.
Civil Liberties
- Access to foreign-owned applications — removes the law authorizing government to ban or restrict apps based on foreign-adversary ownership
- Prior app-ban designations — voids all existing designations made under the repealed law, restoring access to affected platforms
Congressional Summary
Repeal the TikTok Ban ActThis bill repeals the prohibition on distributing, maintaining, updating, or providing internet hosting services for a foreign adversary controlled application (e.g., TikTok) and nullifies any existing designation of a website or application as a foreign adversary controlled application. Under current law, a foreign adversary controlled application is a website or application directly or indirectly operated by (1) ByteDance, Ltd., TikTok, their subsidiaries, successors, or related entities they control; or (2) a social media company that is controlled by a foreign adversary country and determined by the President to present a significant threat to national security. (Here, the term social media company excludes any website or application primarily used to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews. The term foreign adversary country means North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran.) Current law generally prohibits the distribution, maintenance, implementation of updates, or provision of hosting services for a foreign adversary controlled application, unless an approved divestiture transaction results in the application no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary country, among other requirements.
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- Senate
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in Senate
- Action Date
- 2025-01-20
- Date Added
- 2026-06-04
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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